Garda witnesses told a murder trial jury yesterday that hours after a woman was found dead in her Co Cork home, one of her sons admitted punching and kicking her and another son admitted squeezing her throat with both hands.
The trial of the woman's husband, Mr Joseph O'Brien (49) and two of her sons, Kieran (23) and Noel (22), resumed before a jury at the Central Criminal Court yesterday. The three accused men deny murdering Mrs Julia O'Brien (44) at their home in High Street, Drimoleague, Co Cork, on December 24th, 1995.
Insp Maurice Walsh said that Mr Noel O'Brien first told him he pushed his mother after she threw soup at him. "He later went on to say that he punched her in the face while she was on the ground." Noel also alleged that his brother Kieran had "caught her by the throat and banged her head against the ground".
The witness, who at the time of the investigation was a sergeant in Bantry Garda station, said he checked Noel's head where he had said the soup had been thrown but there was no sign of soup or trace of burn marks there.
"I noticed the knuckles on his right hand were inflamed," he told the jury.
Insp Walsh said he then interviewed Mr Noel O'Brien in an upstairs bedroom in the house. He told Mr Patrick Gageby SC, acting for Mr Kieran O'Brien, that in the course of this, "Noel O'Brien got upset at one stage and left the room crying", but he had returned shortly afterwards and made a statement.
In a signed statement, Mr Noel O'Brien said that after drinking four pints in a pub in Drimoleague, he returned home around midnight and found his mother in the sitting room, "langers drunk".
He had told her he was sick of seeing her like that, he said, and began arguing with her, an argument which continued when his brother Kieran came home.
His mother stood and threw a bowl of soup at him, he said, and he got up and pushed her. He was "roaring crying" at the time, he said. He and his brother had then gone to bed, leaving her there.
Later in the statement, he said that after he pushed his mother, he went to the kitchen and washed his face and hands, and then returned and hit her with his fists.
"I bent down and hit her with my closed fists two or three times in the face"
??????i; he could not remember how many times, he was "in such a rage", he said, but it could have been "five times".
Kieran had also hit her on the ground "two or three times" and had kicked her.
"It was all over drink," the statement said. "What I am saying is that it was drink that killed her."
The accused man told police that "in the last three or four years" he had hit his mother "three, maybe four times".
Garda Michael McCarthy, Drimoleague, told the court that he took a statement from Mr Kieran O'Brien at 7.15 a.m. on Christmas Eve morning, also in the family home.
In this statement, Kieran O'Brien said that after drinking three pints in three different pubs in the village, he had returned home earlier that morning at 12.15 a.m. and found Noel already there.
Their mother then returned home, he said, and as she made soup in the kitchen, she and Noel had an argument. He said he saw Noel pushing his mother and her falling towards a couch but then he had gone upstairs and didn't remember anything else until he was awakened by his brother Liam at 3.30 a.m.
Later, Garda McCarthy had put to Mr Kieran O'Brien his brother's allegation that he had kicked their mother. Kieran then told him that after Noel had pushed her to the ground, he went over to Julia.
"I put my left foot down on her stomach and told her to stop acting the fool and go to bed," Kieran said.
The garda told Ms Aileen Donnelly, prosecuting, that later, after Mr Kieran O'Brien had been arrested, he made an additional statement at Bantry Garda station at 12.25 p.m.
In this statement, he said that when he got back home at 12.15 a.m. he found there was "no food in the house" and was "very annoyed" because his mother had been given a total of £180 to buy food for Christmas.
His father and mother were in bed. "I got mad, and I bent in over her on the bed and hit her twice," he said. His mother then followed him downstairs and it was then the argument with Noel occurred when the soup was thrown.
After this he had "caught her by the hair of the head and banged her off the ground twice", the statement said. "Then I kicked her."
Earlier he had "caught her by the neck and told her to cop on and go to bed", he said. "I had my hands firmly squeezed around her neck as I said this."
The statement also said that later that afternoon he had squeezed his mother's neck "until she let go".
The trial continues.